OAKLAND, CA — On a day where Portugal were playing DR Congo and England faced Croatia, your intrepid Football360 scribes found themselves at the iconic Oakland Coliseum watching a United Soccer League clash.
On a stunning day in Oakland, the Roots Sports Club went above and beyond in rolling out the red carpet as the hosts of the Socceroos. Tony Popovic’s side are training at their base and the club has certainly adopted the green and gold throughout this campaign (until the weekend, at least).
On Wednesday, a stadium that enjoyed the rise of Moneyball with the Oakland A’s in Major League Baseball and was sold out every week for the Oakland Raiders NFL side, hosted a mid-week clash in America’s second tier as Oakland drew 1-1 with Birmingham Legions. For the record, the hosts scored a stunning late equaliser, the least they deserved after copping a goal against the run of play.
The Roots have moved into the famous, cavernous venue keeping the flame alive for a city reeling from their three flagship franchises – including Golden State Warriors’ NBA side, who played next door at an indoor arena – abandoning the city over the last decade. Filling that void for the local community is a narrative that rears its head all over the game day, including the ground announcer Matt Hurwitz – who was the voice of the Oracle Arena, where Andrew Bogut won the NBA in 2015, for three decades.
They also wrestle with the idea of 8,000 in a 60,000 seat stadium (they have got a second tier record of 20,000 there for big games) and the same crowd in their former boutique stadium, much like happens in Australia, but maintaining that link to the iconic venue, held so fondly within the community, has steered that decision.
Some 5-6,000 fans were there for a midday kickoff in school holidays as they went completely Down Under: AC/DC, Sia and INXS on the speakers, a didgeridoo performance pre-game and even the Australian national anthem. School kids waved flags, changing Aussie Aussie Aussie, Oi Oi Oi and a delegation of Football Australia officials were also hosted by the club.
The Aussie flavour won’t end next month either; the stadium is reconfigured into a cricket arena next, where the San Francisco Unicorns, captained by India’s Ravi Ashwin, play their home games, featuring Aussies Matt Short, Finn Allen, Xavier Bartlett, Cooper Connelly and Ollie Peake.
Birmingham’s Aussie midfielder Sam McIlhatten couldn’t believe his luck when he turned up and saw fans in gold shirts saying “Oak Roos”.
“It’s cool and the Socceroos in their first game made the country proud and I hope so much that we beat the US. There’s too many of them here in my team that are writing us off like that commentator is as well,” he quipped.
But beneath the fun day out, there are lessons to be learned and Football Australia were paying attention.
McIlhatten, a former APIA Leichhardt player who was in a Sydney FC youth side with Cammy Devlin, continued: “I love it. It’s full time football. I don’t get that in the NPL (National Premier League in Australia). I had to wait till I was 27 to get a professional contract, so I’m loving every minute.”
The club is able to attract 6-8,000 fans per game to their full-time professional second division side despite only being launched in 2018. We explored that in a feature last week, in terms of the way they are embedded into their community.
But looking around the grand old venue, while sparsely populated, it still had a decent crowd in at a terrible timeslot watching full-time professionals in a second tier streamed on ESPN+ and in the local area on one of the secondary Fox channels.
Football Australia is responsible for the country’s fledgling Australian Championship and Football Australia Executive Director of Football Heather Garriock said they were using the trip to compare notes with their hosts.
“I’ve literally just spoken to the Oakland Roots head of commercial and have spent the last couple of months aligning with them and speaking to them,” Garriock said.
“Whilst they’re saying to us they can learn a lot on the field, we can learn a lot off them from a commercial and brand value and merchandise point of view, to be able to commercialise our football brands not just on the field but off the field as well.”
After enjoying the facility over the last few weeks, it is a collaboration that is set to continue.
“I think we know more than anybody big tournaments like this can build momentum, particularly with an area like Oakland,” she said.
“We’re very privileged because we don’t only have the Men’s World Cup here, we’ve also got the runway to LA Olympic Games as well. So this being our home away from home over the last couple of months has been really important for us.
“But this is not the end of Football Australia. Our Socceroos or our Matildas will be coming back to Oakland.”
